Presently, in order for a technician or other professional to locate parts, supplies and/or equipment for a work order, the technician is required to browse through a parts or equipment catalog. The catalog may be in a book form or in an electronic form. When the catalog is in an electronic form the technician may be able to perform “key-word” searches in order to facilitate locating the desired part or equipment.
Often the catalog is broken down into multiple smaller sub-catalogs for easier searching. The catalogs may also be categorized by an asset type (e.g., trucks, cars, etc.). Nonetheless, these catalogs can be cumbersome and difficult to use, and often only include a single master catalog without any subdivisions. Even though key-word searching can speedup the search process, the technician is still often throwing out a large net and hoping to find the item they are looking for.
Current work order management system also provide for failure analysis. Such analysis may include the frequency that a part needs to be replaced, or the frequency that a certain piece of equipment breaks down. This information can then be used to identify parts and/or equipment that are prone to failure, or generate statistics such as “mean time between failure” for certain parts and/or equipment. However, these statistical reports are typically only used after a work order has been completed, and do not attempt to enhance the searching process. Accordingly, these and other problems are addressed by the present invention.